Message split conversation

[david.mtlsd]

One of my friends recently switched to Android. He disabled his iMessages account and is telling me I'm the only one of his contacts complaining about the following.

Basically, I'm now getting his messages as from his phone number AND his icloud account.
So it will say message from 123-4567 and person@icloud.com (as if it were a group conversation). And they also appear in a different thread labeled with just the phone number.
The behavior is a bit wild. Usually the "group" conversation ends up appearing blank, while the conversation with the phone number keeps only a few days worth of messages. Basically, messages are randomly assigned to one or another conversation and if I open it a second time, they might get remapped to a different one or disappear.
It can be normal for a day or 2 and then it comes back.

So I deleted the contact card completely, from my iPhone, Mac and watch. But I'm still getting the same behavior.
Note that it's not consistent through all devices. Ex: My watch can send a notification "new message from 123-4567 and person@icloud.com" while my mac would just show the phone number and my phone would show 2 conversations. It's completely random.

Is there a way to reset that somehow? It's been a month and I'm out of ideas.

 

[tensixturtle]

I get strange Messages and iMessage behaviour sometimes. Did you try (if possible) deleting all the conversations with him from your iPhone? Also, have you tried signing out and back in to iMessage on your phone?

Based on what you describe, if I understand correctly, it seems like your phone is the device experiencing the mix up with sender address. The Mac is receiving from just the phone number, and the watch should be just mirroring everything from your phone.

 

[david.mtlsd]

I did delete all my conversations with him everywhere.
The watch doesn't even always mirror the phone.

I think the last thing to try would be to sign out and back in.
It also happens on my Mac, not just on my phone. But it happens independently from one another.

 

[TimUSCA]

Found this thread because I am having the SAME bizarre behavior.

I have one friend on Android, and he is the only person it's happening with. He has two numbers, one that's RCS and the other that's a Google Voice SMS. I deleted the Google Voice number, and things have gone off the rails since. Every time I text him, it creates a second thread, seemingly to the same number... but it's blank. And then it disappears instantly when I go back.

I've done all the same stuff... deleted the contact card, re-added his Google Voice number, etc. Nothing works, and it's driving me insane! And yeah, it's consistent on my iMac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

I just assumed it was an 18.1 beta issue, but I don't think it is. Seems like an iCloud issue maybe. Did you figure this out?

 

[Fred Zed]

This started for me also at the time when 90% of all my messages disappeared. The ones that remained some have turned into group messages for some reason.

 

[david.mtlsd]

I disabled iMessage. The issue persisted even while iMessage was disabled, and after re-enabling it.
Also, my friend told me his mom (who has an iPhone as well) is having the same problem as me.

But it seems like it shifted. Now I rarely get the group message part, though messages still appear in double. Now, alerts show the phone number instead of the contact name (about 50% of the time).

 

[Fred Zed]

I disabled iMessage. The issue persisted even while iMessage was disabled, and after re-enabling it.
Also, my friend told me his mom (who has an iPhone as well) is having the same problem as me.

But it seems like it shifted. Now I rarely get the group message part, though messages still appear in double. Now, alerts show the phone number instead of the contact name (about 50% of the time).

Yep. Double messages, I have loads of them also.

Try an experiment, go to iCloud messages , turn the switch off then back on again. Then go into messages app and watch sync bar at bottom. Whilst it’s syncing periodically ( quite often )go Edit in messages and check to see how many deleted messages are being shown. For me around halfway through the sync process I keep getting hundreds of messages populating the deleted folder for recovery with 1 day on each. I recover them , then scroll down the messages page and go back to Edit and more messages are there for me to recover. Hundreds. This behavior never changes for me.

 

[david.mtlsd]

Yep. Double messages, I have loads of them also.

Try an experiment, go to iCloud messages , turn the switch off then back on again. Then go into messages app and watch sync bar at bottom. Whilst it’s syncing periodically ( quite often )go Edit in messages and check to see how many deleted messages are being shown. For me around halfway through the sync process I keep getting hundreds of messages populating the deleted folder for recovery with 1 day on each. I recover them , then scroll down the messages page and go back to Edit and more messages are there for me to recover. Hundreds. This behavior never changes for me.

I already disabled iCloud messages a while ago because all the gifs I send were eating my data allowance.

 

[TimUSCA]

This started for me also at the time when 90% of all my messages disappeared. The ones that remained some have turned into group messages for some reason.

Yep, when it happens to me, it's essentially a group text with me, my friend, and my friend's old (deleted) number. When I go into that group message, the old number is gone, and it's now just me and the friend's new number - in a new thread, creating the duplicate.

 

[TimUSCA]

So for anyone that’s still here, I think I found a solution… Or at least a workaround.

I started a brand new conversation with the phone number I don’t want in my contacts anymore. That allows me to go through the contact info and block the number completely on my phone.

Now it acts like the number doesn’t exist on my phone, so the group text doesn’t happen anymore. The conversation between me and my buddy appears normal now.